I had been reluctant to write about the Great Cartoon War until now, believing there are more serious things for the world to worry about, but the political consequences of the affair have become difficult to ignore, writes Brian Whitaker in today's Middle East dispatch.
Of course, there are plenty of Muslims who are upset by the drawings (now that they have heard about them) - though bombarding the editor of Jyllands-Posten with protest letters strikes me as a far more appropriate response than setting fire to embassies. On the other side of the argument, there are also more useful ways of asserting free speech than by reprinting the cartoons and causing gratuitous offence.
Since the cartoons were first published last year, all sorts of people with an axe to grind have muscled in on the row. A posting on the notoriously Islamophobic website, Jihadwatch, for instance, describes it portentously as "a struggle between exponents of a free society and organised thuggery". Meanwhile, several Arab governments - for their own political reasons - have busily fanned the flames in the opposite direction.
Read the full article here.
